Visiting Dachau was a powerful moment, as one can imagine. Persecution of certain people groups is nothing new. K and I have been reading about Nero, and how he would coat Christians in pitch and tar, then set them on fire and use them as literal human torches. The people in charge here must have had similar mindsets to Nero to be able to treat other human beings so horribly.
I thought about converting the pictures I took of Dachau to black and white, but then I decided that color more accurately portrayed what people saw. Black and white makes it too easy to disassociate yourself from the images.
The day was hot, with little breeze or cloud cover to offer relief from the burning sun. We parked our car and walked to the information center of the former concentration camp. We had chosen to use the personal audio tour available in English, so we picked up our devices, and began our tour.
Foundation of one of the administrative buildings outside the camp.
Part of the old railway which brought in new prisoners
Former SS buildings. These are used by the Bavarian police and not open to the public.
Looking from the SS buildings toward the camp
Picture of people cheering when they were liberated in 1945. The camp, designed for about 6,000 people, held more than 30,000 upon liberation.
Plaque to honor the 42nd Rainbow Division
Plaque to honor the 20th Armored Division
The gates that many entered and never exited
Work makes you free
Inside one of windows of the gate house
The gatehouse, or jourhaus, with the guard tower on topOne of the first sites visible upon entering is the roll call area. Prisoners were forced to stand at attention in all kinds of weather for an hour or more while the guards counted them. Those that were too weak to stand were punished. Those that helped the weak were punished. On such a hot day as the day we visited, I truly empathized with those who were emprisoned here. I had water. They had none. I could stand in the shade. They had none. I had slathered myself with sunscreen to prevent burning. They had none.
Prisoners standing during roll call
The roll call area. The buildings to the right are now the museum, but used to house the laundry, kitchen, storage rooms for personal belongings of prisoners, and the shower baths where the prisoners were punished by flogging or hanging.
More roll call area. The buildings to the left are reconstructed barracks.In front of the museum buildings lies the memorial.
"May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men."
Memorial sculpture
The triangles represent the different-triangles that the various people groups were required to wear to identify them. 
"Ashes of the Unknown Concentration Camp Prisoner"
Most of the barracks are gone. They were too dilapidated to keep when they turned the old camp into a memorial and museum in 1968. They have two reconstructed barracks to give people an idea of what they looked like. Inside one of them, they have the beds, locker rooms, and bathrooms. I think the toilets and sinks are original, but the beds are definitely newer.
One portion of the audio tour talked about how strict they were with bed-making. All of the beds had to be made according to exact specifications. It was unacceptable if all the lines of the blue and white checkered covers didn't line up across all the beds.
Reconstructed barracks
Looking out across the foundations of the original barracks.
First beds-- three high, but everyone had a place for personal things
Beds 2 -- personal space gone
Tables for eating, and wooden lockers against the wall.
Beds 3 -- there are not even any dividers between the beds. It is like one big area where everyone was crowded together.
Toilets
Wash basinsAt the far end of the camp lie the memorials -- Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant. I walked by them, but, due to time, I didn't enter any of them.
Catholic Memorial
Jewish Memorial
The ditch and fence that separated prisoners from freedom.
Fence, guard tower, and perimeter fence. Anyone who stepped on the grass could be shot.The crematorium, also known as Barrack X, lies at the far end of the camp, across a bridge, and hidden by the trees. It has been said that they sometimes burned several people at a time in each oven to keep up with the bodies. The building also contains the gas chambers.
The Crematorium
Memorial to four women serving in the armed forces murdered and cremated here
The sign over the "showers" (aka gas chamber)
The door to the gas chamber. Notice that the handles latch to trap people inside
Gas chamber that was never used for mass murders. That is not to say it wasn't used on individuals for human experimentation.
Two of the ovens in the new crematorium
Another oven in the new crematorium
The old crematorium. The sign nearby reads," This crematorium was built in the summer of 1940, after the foreign prisoners arrived and the mortality rate greatly increased. A year later it was already working beyond capacity. The crematorium was in operation until about April 1943. During this period approximately 11,000 prisoners were cremated here." 
Bridge between the "camp" and the crematorium
Walking back from the crematorium toward the entrance. Guard tower and fence on the right; barrack foundations on the left. The audio tour included several first-hand accounts of various aspects of the camp. The testimony of a lady named Edith who participated in the liberation of the camp brought tears to my eyes, as did many other things that day. Words cannot convey my sentiments of horror and sadness.
I didn't go through the museum. The kids were done, and I had seen most of what there was to see outside. We still had to drive to Nuremburg that afternoon, so we headed back to the car to complete our drive. We stopped at a grocery store in the town of Dachau for cold drinks and fruit, then headed north.
